Four chances to catch 'The Mindy Project'

It's been a pretty meager year for network sitcoms. And if NBC's sneak peek at "1600 Penn" is any indication, 2013 won't bring much relief.

It's been a pretty meager year for network sitcoms. And if NBC's sneak peek at "1600 Penn" is any indication, 2013 won't bring much relief.

One of the few new comedies to stand out has been "The Mindy Project" on Fox, a spirited spin on "Bridget Jones's Diary" that stars Mindy Kaling as a 30-ish gynecologist with a burgeoning practice and a shambles of a social life. She's slightly overweight and prone to sleep with the wrong men, and she's willing to tell us all about it as she vows (nearly every day) to turn her life around.

Her character here is both different and essentially linked to Kelly Kapoor of "The Office." Kaling's Kapoor also was linked to the wrong guy and prone to fantasy and self-delusion. Both characters play with the ethnic stereotype of Asians as straight-A students, workaholics and briskly efficient professionals. (Kaling is an Indian-American, born Vera Chokalingam.) On "The Office," Kelly was the resident airhead and pop culture junkie, and on "The Mindy Project," Kaling dares to explore the messy (and very human) underside of a doctor's life while never tipping into the contrived soap operatics of "Grey's Anatomy" or other medical melodramas.

For the record, Kaling didn't have to look far for her character's inspiration. Her mother is a gynecologist.

Tonight, Fox offers viewers four chances to make a habit of "The Mindy Project" with four repeat episodes: a bleak Christmas surprise (8 p.m.), a night on the town (8:30 p.m.), a minor matter (9 p.m.) and Mindy gets all fowled up (9:30 p.m.).

— Relics of experiments gone strangely awry loom large as "Mysteries at the Museum" (9 on Travel) visits the Big Sandy Heritage Center in Pikeville, Ky.; the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia; and the Katy Depot Museum in Texas.

Recent reports have Billingsley and Vaughn teaming up again on a reality series about finding great new documentary filmmakers. The series, to be called "Pursuit of Truth," will air on TheBlaze, an Internet site and television network associated with former Fox News personality Glenn Beck.

— The last five finalists must create outfits with a "wow" factor under the budgetary restraints of a real-world retailer on "Project Runway All Stars" (9 p.m., Lifetime). Store owner Elie Tahari helps officiate.